"Finmeccanica, a conglomerate of defense, aerospace, energy and transportation companies, provided Iran with 44 gas turbines through its subsidiary Ansaldo Energia as part of a project completed in 2002 to increase that country’s power capacity. This past summer, citing that tie, Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority held off from awarding the company a contract to build it light rail cars. But the federal government had no such qualms, awarding the company contracts to sell products like weapons and tracked vehicles to the United States Army while the company was still in Iran. A spokesperson for the Finmeccanica said the company withdrew from Iran because it wanted to align itself with the policies of the Italian government and because it was sensitive to concerns by the U.S. government about companies operating in Iran." From 2000-2009, the company was the recipient of $2.1 billion US federal funds. They have withdrawn their activities from Iran. (The New York Times, "Profiting from Iran, and the US," 3/6/2010)

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"However, Breda is owned by Finmeccanica, a conglomerate of defense, aerospace, energy and transportation companies, which has deals to provide Iran with 44 gas turbines through its subsidiary Ansaldo Energia." (LA Times, "MTA takes issue with potential contractor's ties with Iran," 7/18/2009)

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Ansaldo Energia, one of Finmeccanica's subsidiaries, notes the following on its website: "The bid for the supply of 32 simple-cycle gas turbine (GT) units to Iran, in which the main European manufacturers participated, ended with a pre-agreement in May 1999 and the signing of the contract in July of the same year between Ansaldo Energia Spa and its client, Mapna, the largest general contractor in Iran in the electricity field and affiliated to the country's Ministry of Energy. The 32 units, all of them equipped with V94.2 150MW gas turbines, total 4800 MW of power output, constituting roughly 20% of the entire production of the country. In the meantime, new contracts have been added to the initial one, bringing the final number of units supplied by Ansaldo Energia to 44." (Company website)